Animal
by Countess Plays-In-The-Rain
Summary: Ralph begs for his life and is spared. Three years after his capture, Ralph feels his humanity slipping away and wonders if he made the right decision. JackRalph
1. Turning

**A/N:** I suppose this is my answer to the wildly famous LOTF question, "What would have happened if there was no ship?" It's going to be a bit long, and I've never done that. It's also my first bit of fanfiction off a book, so I'm nervous about that, too. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. :)   
  
Jack/Ralph, hooray! There can't possibly be enough of that. Nothing serious happens until three years after the capture. Thirteen is rather young for the complication of this couple, I think, but sixteen is not. :D   
  
This is written partly in flashback, and I hope I didn't make it...well...totally incoherent. I hope you all enjoy. :)   
  


- - -

  
  
Ralph didn't know why Jack hadn't killed him.   
  
He honestly couldn't even venture a guess. He could remember every detail of those minutes as he reached the beach. As he reached the end of his flight. As he reached the end of his life. _It was supposed to, it should have been the end._ He remembered the burning. The air turned on him, became fire in his mouth, throat, lungs, scorching him with every desperate breath. Everything was turning on him. The branches of the forest had scratched grooves into his skin as if they had been malignant hands, hunters' hands, reaching for him. The sand grated harshly against his abused feet. Blood oozed down his face, his chest, his legs. Ralph noted its progress across his skin with a strange, clam, detached precision as he continued to run, somehow, miraculously continued to run. Until his foot splashed into the ocean, and he jerked back, the salt water agony on his broken skin.   
  
_Turning on me, everything._   
  
And the hunters were behind him, their feet a steady drum against the soft earth, creating a strangely comforting, rolling rhythm. They sounded simple and inexorable, like a crashing wave. Then the sound stopped with almost comic abruptness, because they were right behind him. Ralph's legs, already nearly liquid with exertion, simply gave. It seemed as if it took days for the sandy ground to rise up to meet him. In that long, lazy time, Ralph concluded that he was utterly hysterical. Panic was writhing in him like a thing trying to break loose, and he felt a tremendous urge to laugh. Simply curl into himself and laugh and laugh and laugh as Jack drove a spear through his heart and tossed him into the ocean where Simon and Piggy were waiting.   
  
Well, hullo, mates. Reckon you didn't expect to see me so soon. And they would link arms and stroll off and laugh and laugh...   
  
Ralph was rather surprised to find that he was crying rather than laughing. He heard the soft huffs of displaced sand behind him. He didn't know where he found the strength to twist himself around and throw himself at the feet of the tall, swaying, red-haired boy that was strolling toward him so casually. Where he found the strength to beg.   
  
_Beg. I begged._   
  
"Jack." Ralph marveled that his voice could go so harsh, so rasping. The effort of speaking was agony on his throat. "Jack, don't. Please." Fear, the fear that had been present all along, half-buried in a drift of pride and integrity and good intentions and leadership, became a living, gibbering, articulate thing. _I don't want to die don't kill me don't kill me please I'll do anything anything even though I hate living on this horrible island I want to live live live..._   
  
It was only after that moment that his memory grew foggy. All he remembered is that there was no brutal, driving pain in his chest. No last, fleeting moments of precious life. No fading vision. No cold embrace of the ocean. No Simon, so quiet and soulful. No Piggy, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses. Just a heavy, suffocating blanket of whiteness drawn over his mind. He must have been jerked to his feet. He might have been struck. There might have been laughter. Maybe pity. He must have walked. He might have been babbling, still pleading. There must have been Jack's eyes on him. In what? Hate? Satisfaction? Vindication? Curiousity? Pleasure?   
  
Later, as the fog lifted, Ralph found himself weighing that very question carefully in his mind. It occupied him so fully that he did not notice his surroundings until he shifted slightly and felt cold, unyielding rock dig into his flesh. Ralph sat up and immediately regretted it. Bile rose up in his damaged throat, and he continued his momentum, leaning forward until his hot forehead connected rather painfully into the cold floor of the cave. _I'm in a cave_, Ralph though wonderingly. _I'm not dead. I'm in a cave._ He moved his head with exquisite care to glance to the right and left. A fairly small cave. Feeling bold, he lifted his head slowly up, and immediately his blood chilled. No, not a cave. _A prison._ Branches had been tied clumsily together with plant fibers to create a crude lattice that sprawled across where Ralph supposed the opening to the cave must be. The daring, resilient shafts of light that managed to squeeze through the few slivers in the makeshift wall barely illuminated the small cavern, sustaining the illusion that the entire interior, including its occupant, was colored a glimmering, sickly grey.   
  


- - - - -

  
  
Those were the details of his imprisonment as Ralph had observed them. And they remained unchanged. _In three years,_ Ralph thought, running his hand over his arm and tracing a thin, jagged scar. Only one scar remained from his flight through the grasping trees, every rough, pale bit of it a memory of that day. A day that ended in what he could see now was an anticlimax. The hero did not die nobly, no. He crawled and begged. He was dragged off. Kept. _Kept..._ Ralph shuddered with suppressed hilarity. The last one to turn into an animal, and here he was living like one. Ralph settled back against the cool, rough stone wall and allowed his mind to wander along a well-worn track of thought. _I'm treated well. Very well. No one ever hurt me. He sends me food and drink once a day. He lets me bathe. He lets me wander around the island. He knows I'm not going anywhere._ Ralph felt the laughter coming back up, like bile. He thought back to how surprised he had been when he understood that no excessive pain was coming his way. He thought back to that first day, lying on the stone, muscles aching, head spinning...   
  


- - - - -

  
  
And then there was rustling at the head of the cave, and Ralph's skin seemed to actually shrink with fear.   
  
"Ralph?" Ralph jerked at the trembling whisper.   
  
"Eric?" The boy scrambled in under the creaking branches of the wall, letting it fall loudly shut behind him.   
  
"Ralph, Ralph, Ralph," Eric was shaking, convulsing, really, with such horrible, racking sobs that Ralph was alarmed. He put both his hands on the boy's shoulders and shook gently.   
  
"Eric, it's all right. Don't cry. I'm all right." _That was a lie,_ Ralph thought wearily, and he allowed himself a smile. It was the first expression of amusement that didn't have a threat of madness behind it that he had experienced all day. Eric pressed his face into Ralph's sore shoulder and tried to control his wailing. Ralph gritted his teeth and bravely ignored the way his poor muscles were screaming in protest, patting Eric's head consolingly.   
  
"I thought he would kill you for sure," the boy hiccoughed miserably. Ralph grimaced. He wasn't sufficiently well healed to contemplate his earlier proximity to death. He forced his voice to be steady.   
  
"Well, he didn't. See? I'm right here, in one piece." _Mostly one piece_, his mind amended grimly. He embraced Eric, once again ignoring the excruciating grind of his worn muscles, as if to prove that he was indeed alive by his warmth. Eric clutched at him fiercely for a moment, then sat back and rubbed his eyes clear of tears. He reached behind him and retrieved something that Ralph had noticed him shove under the screen of branches before he followed it into the cave. It was two bowls that seemed to be made of roughly hewn wood. One filled with water, one filled with greasy cooked meat. Ralph's stomach twisted in a fantastic combination of hunger and nausea. Eric set the bowls down carefully by Ralph, and then scooted back.   
  
"I have to go now," he said quietly, obviously wishing he didn't. Ralph, who through his ordeal had acquired a strange sort of clear, hard perception that he supposed was a side effect of mental strain, realized that somehow, even in Jack's mad grip, he and Eric were the same. Eric still looked to him for guidance and reassurance, and Ralph still supplied it for him, even though Eric was a full-fledged member of Jack's tribe and Ralph was a broken and bleeding captive. _Interesting,_ he thought vaguely. He mustered a smile and gave Eric what he hoped was a reassuring wave, and the boy disappeared under the branches that closed Ralph from the light.   
  
It was Eric who came to bring him food for days, weeks. He came to expect him whenever the branches began to hiss and shuffle. That was why he was so shocked, so utterly shocked, when one day weeks later it wasn't Eric. One day weeks later it was Jack. 


	2. Playing

**A/N:** I apologize for the amount of time this chapter took to write. It was incredibly difficult; I wrote and edited and rewrote, and honestly I'm still not pleased with it. Since I envisioned this story happening years after the events of Lord of the Flies, I didn't think much about what had happened directly after except in terms of events. I meant to move quickly from then to the "present," but I had to at least establish some of the issues that make up the rest of the story, like the, you know, small and relatively unimportant conflict between Ralph and Jack and all that it entails. :) So, I had to work backwards a bit with this chapter, and I worry that I didn't "de-age" this struggle properly and that Ralph is expressing thoughts a little too sophisticated for thirteen (although much of the thinking is due to the reminiscing of his older self), although on the other hand Ralph has every reason to have seriously matured, not the least of which is the whole lost innocence thing.   
  
Erm...I know I'm rambling on and most everyone has wisely stopped reading this note, so I'll just sneak off here. Hopefully the next chapter won't take so long. Enjoy. :)   
  


- - -

  
  
The redhead had always had a presence. It draped over everything around him like a heavy, suffocating cloth. That was how Ralph knew, when he felt his breathing become shallow as if something were physically restricting it, listening to the rustle of leaves at the entrance to the small cave. _I could sense when he was coming. Always._ And then Jack was there, gloating, a self-satisfied smirk painted on his face like the mask of red and black. He seemed to fill the room, and he merely stood there, filling it, and staring at the huddle on the back floor of the cave that was Ralph.   
  
The silence stretched out for so long that it felt fake, almost scripted. Hero at the mercy of the villain, act two, scene one. Ralph found himself staggering to his feet although his mind was screaming at him to stay still, make yourself small, keep quiet. He forced himself to meet the menace in the blue stare evenly.   
  
"What took you so long, Jack?" Ralph listened the absurd question spilling out of his mouth with faint surprise. If Jack was also surprised, he showed no sign of it.   
  
"There was no need to rush, was there?" Ralph was not expecting the offhand tone, and somehow it made him even more uneasy. Jack's voice held the undercurrent of mocking venom that it had gradually acquired as their relationship deteriorated. As Jack began to hate him.   
  
"No, there wasn't." Ralph agreed mildly more for the sake of saying something than because Jack's comment called for a response. He knew that Jack had expected to find him cringing and whimpering in terror or hysterically demanding to know what Jack intended to do with him, and in spite of the cold ache of fear in his stomach, Ralph felt tremendously smug about doing neither. _How many would stand and look their would-be murderers in the eye? Yes, you must be a bit mad for it._   
  
"Have you been comfortable?"   
  
"Not really, no."   
  
"Good." Ralph was shocked at how close Jack's frank delight at his discomfort came to making him laugh. There was something so relentlessly mad _(there it goes again)_ in the scene that it inspired hilarity. Jack's doubtful intentions aside, they were having a relatively civil chat, considering that not so many days ago Jack was chasing him through a jungle with a spear and a threat of a stick sharpened at both ends.   
  
_But he didn't, did he? And why not? Because I begged. You're strong, Jack, but you're not smart. I had your measure. I knew what you wanted. And it didn't cost me anything to give it to you. A little dignity, maybe, but it's nothing I wouldn't have lost if you had sacrificed me to the Beast and put me on display like a pig. Like that pig._   
  
Ralph was suddenly, embarrassingly aware that his legs were trembling. He gave in to instinct and sank slowly back down to the floor, wincing as his damaged muscles protested the movement.   
  
Jack noticed the wince.   
  
"Oh? Does it hurt, Ralph?" He asked with mock concern. Ralph inwardly marveled at how quickly Jack could regress at times from vicious hunter-chief to the childish, attention-seeking bully he was when they first arrived on the island.   
  
"Yes." Ralph replied simply, looking down at his folded hands. He could feel Jack's eyes moving over him furiously, searching. _He thinks I'm still fighting him for something. He thinks this is a new ploy. Round two._ The thought made Ralph smile. Jack seized on it. He swooped down on him - Ralph distantly noticed how swift and bestial Jack's motions were - and twisted his fingers through Ralph's hair, jerking his head painfully back. In spite of the events leading up to this moment in his life, the betrayal, the killing, the chase, Ralph was shocked at the raw fury in Jack's face.   
  
"What is so damned funny?" He hissed. Ralph swallowed convulsively.   
  
"Jack," his voice was remarkably steady, "you've won. What did you expect? Yes, I'm hurt. You've won. You're the chief," Ralph finished quietly. Ralph supposed he ought to be ashamed of the admission, but he wasn't. It was the truth. He had been locked away. His body was exhausted. Viscerally, at least, he had been conquered. An astounding range of expressions was flitting across Jack's face over the course of this, but it settled into a painfully familiar one. The cave floor changed to hot, rough sand, the walls stretched and softened into the shadowy edges of the jungle, and the dull gray light deepened into the rosy glow of a fading sun. Jack was looking at him as he had many times when they were still a tribe, still friends, still lost schoolboys. A mixture of exasperation and grudging respect, amusement and resentment. Jack's fingers loosened their grip on Ralph's fair strands.   
  
"You're impossible, Ralph." Jack scoffed and his expression hardened again. Ralph came back with a jerk to his rock prison. "You never do what I want you to." Ralph's hackles rose, but he forced himself to stay blank. _It's a survival game. He thinks it's a power game, but I know it's a survival game._ Jack let go of his hair completely and stood up. He remained for a moment, considering the boy curled on the floor before him. "Yet, anyway." Jack added with a return to his former eerily pleasant tone. A moment later he was gone. Ralph didn't realize how tense he had been until his muscles abruptly relaxed as soon as the object of his anxiety left the room. Animal instinct, Ralph thought distantly. His fingers traced an ugly, inflamed wound on his forearm. He thought on the past. On laughing and splashing and playing and Jack, lighthearted, beside him. And now, his body jumped on edge in his mere presence. What had happened in between?   
  
After three years, Ralph still could not say he was sure. 


	3. Longing

Ralph walked down the sand, past the wet, smooth plain exposed by low tide, stepping carefully over the tiny, wriggling creatures that occupied the area. He sighed involuntarily as the cool seawater engulfed his ankles, chasing away the heat the relentless sunshine had burned into his skin. Ralph walked steadily until the water reached his slim hips. Listening to the murmur of waves against the shoreline, looking out to the flashing of sunlight on the rippling distance, Ralph allowed himself to be lulled into a sleepy sort of trance.   
  
The deep water was inviting. The urge to keep walking, to start swimming, to keep going and going was powerful. Seductive. The muscles of Ralph's legs were tense with the desire to move forward, and the swell of sudden, painful, desperate hopelessness filling his chest made him long for a warm embrace of salt water. Ralph gnashed his teeth against his bottom lip, caught in the throes of a now-familiar agony. When he turned to return to shore, it was because an inexplicable, purely animal attachment to life rose, as it always did, more powerful than the misery that had taken up residence in his veins.   
  
He plunged into the trees, beginning the familiar trek through the jungle. He heard voices up ahead and stopped short, listening. They were growing closer, and Ralph hesitated for a moment before dodging aside, off the path and into the thick vegetation. The voices passed, one raised in distinctive anger, the others murmuring in counterpoint. Ralph moved on quietly.  
  
The sun burst through the trees in staccato patches, dancing wetly across the scenery. Ralph stopped short, entranced by the picture. Even now, there were times when the sheer beauty of the island made his chest ache with a bewildered, helpless sort of pleasure.   
  
A rough hand on his shoulder made him cry out instinctively. The low chuckle that rose behind him confirmed the identity of the boy before Ralph had a chance to turn around. Jack could amuse himself endlessly with his silent hunter's tread. Ralph shot him a reproachful look, and Jack smirked in response.   
  
"Oh, sorry, did I startle you?"   
  
"Not at all, Jack," he replied dryly. A dark look came over Jack's face, and he glanced back at the few boys who were milling about behind him. "Not at all, chief," Ralph amended in a tone that was close to indulgence. Jack snorted, but didn't seem inclined to press the point. He seized Ralph's arm and ushered him along the path, back towards camp.   
  
"I have to ask you something," he murmured when the boys were left out of earshot. Ralph looked at him curiously. It wasn't an unusual occurrence for Jack to seek him out for advice, as bewildering as it was at first. He was learning to take confusion as an established part of his life now, considering he was essentially at the mercy of Jack, who was almost comically volatile. After some reflection, though, he understood that it was the same phenomenon he had previously observed - in spite of everything that had happened on the island, it seemed the basic relations among the boys had stayed the same. Jack still clearly preferred his company above that of any of the other boys.   
  
Years of this strange camaraderie had softened them both. Jack grew to be inexplicably genteel at times, often lulled by Ralph's quiet dignity and natural good nature into forgetting to treat him as a vanquished foe.   
  
Jack practically shoved Ralph through the leaves that formed the entrance to his cave. Ralph settled himself on the ground as Jack paced, halted, paced a bit more, and then knelt down by Ralph. "The truth is," Jack shifted, obviously uncomfortable with what he was about to express, "I think the boys homesick, the lot of them."   
  
"Homesick?" Ralph demanded incredulously, "How can they be homesick now? They abandoned the chance for rescue three years ago. They chose this." Ralph's bitterness was all too obvious. Jack shot him a warning glance, and Ralph scoffed and looked away, willing the torrent of _fire ship navy glasses Piggy hunted stick_ back into a dark corner of his mind. "Anyway," he continued presently, in a carefully controlled tone, "it doesn't make much sense, does it?"   
  
"I'm only telling you what I reckon." Jack said sullenly, raking a hand through his long, disheveled hair. Ralph pressed the palms of his hands together absently, considering.   
  
"I suppose they could be sick of the island now that they know what it's about," Ralph said slowly after a long, thoughtful silence. "It must have been fun for them, for a bit, while it was strange and new. But now, it's life before the island that seems strange, isn't it? Very far away and unreal." Jack was watching him, an oddly flat look in his eyes. Ralph flushed instinctively. "What?" The expression faded as Jack's natural belligerence took over again.   
  
"I know what _you_ think about it," Jack said in a particularly uncharitable tone, "but what makes you think that my hunters want to abandon the island? We're happy here. We can do what we want." Ralph was laughing, his face pressed into one splayed hand, shoulders shaking helplessly. Jack bristled. "What?"   
  
"What makes me think your hunters want to abandon the island? You make me think so, half-wit! That's exactly what you just told me." Ralph's eyes glistened in the poor light of the cave. "You _know_ it's the truth, you just hate to hear it from me. For god's sake, Jack, when are you going to stop denying the obvious just because you don't fancy it?" Ralph's amusement faded swiftly, and he turned his face away to hide his annoyance.   
  
"Look who's calling the kettle black," Jack hissed, "you know that we're never going to be rescued! There's been no sign of a ship in three years -"   
  
"There was one," Ralph interjected wearily.   
  
"Oh, right, one. But I let the fire out, and it's gone now!" Jack laughed harshly. "It's not coming back, either!" Ralph's hands curled into tight fists.   
  
"Which is just how you want it. So it's turned out nicely for you." Ralph commented in a careful, mild voice. Jack's jaw muscles worked jerkily as he fought to get his ire under control.   
  
"You always make it sound as if you could just fix everything, Ralph. You can't make things happen just because you want them to."   
  
"Brilliant," Ralph spat sardonically, "but I always knew that we had to work together if we wanted to live at all decently. It's no good unless everyone wants it," Ralph continued softly, more to himself than Jack.   
  
"What's wrong with how we're living now?" Jack snapped.   
  
_We're a pack of lawless animals, poisoned with bloodlust._   
  
"You know what _I_ think about it. And anyhow, we're talking in circles, Jack." Ralph gave him a tired look. Jack pressed his back against the cave wall and exhaled through his teeth.   
  
"What should I do about this, then?" Ralph blinked at the frank admission of need on Jack's part, appreciating how heavily the question must have been weighing on him.   
  
"Well, you haven't even told me why you think they're so dissatisfied all of a sudden." Ralph recalled the angry voices in the woods. "Jack...doesn't everyone get along well?" Jack jerked his head up, shocked.   
  
"How did y'know?"   
  
"How did I know what?" Ralph asked, although he could already guess.   
  
"Everyone's started to fight. Not everyone, but..." Jack scratched his head, frowning. "Most everyone. And they don't forget about it, either." Jack cracked his knuckles absently. "They won't hunt together anymore."   
  
"You could try speaking with them individually. Maybe the problem isn't as general as you think." Ralph looked at him appraisingly through his fair hair. "Then again, maybe they're all just unhappy with the way things are. Maybe there's something important that needs to be changed." Jack narrowed his eyes at him.   
  
"Like what?" Ralph shrugged.   
  
"Let's just stop arguing," Ralph said quietly, rubbing at the ache that had developed across his forehead. The righteous anger that Jack had sparked had faded into exhaustion, as it always did.   
  
Ralph knew that he was merely echoing sentiments from a distant past. His fine feelings had been rusting over for years, leaving him with more cold, dull indifference than moral purpose. Jack was the only thing that could infuriate him back into some animation, some semblance of his old self. _Jack's always arguing with a ghost, and he doesn't even realize it. I wonder what he would think if he knew._ When he looked up, he saw that Jack was grinning at him.   
  
"What?" Ralph asked nervously, suddenly, ridiculously afraid that Jack had somehow penetrated his thoughts.   
  
"'Let's stop arguing'? What will we do with each other if we stop arguing?" Ralph relaxed, laughing in spite of himself. It was a rare occasion when the quality of Jack's amusement did not border on vicious, or at least mean-spirited, although Ralph had to admit these moments were growing less rare than they used to be.   
  
"Stare, unless a pack of cards washes up here. Or I suppose we could take to playing twenty questions." Jack snorted.   
  
"That's not much fun in here, is it? It would be "a rock" every round." Jack leaned forward, peering at Ralph with an unguardedly curious expression. "Why do you stay in here so much, anyway? No one's going to bother you if they see you outside." Ralph turned his head away, thinking of the way he had weaved through the jungle vegetation earlier to avoid the other boys. Old habits die hard.   
  
"I know that. I'm not afraid." It was not pleasant to be gaped at, to see some be apologetic, some be defensive, some be contemptful, some be sad, some be almost ridiculously reverent. But it was nothing Ralph feared, for the most part. "It's just that there's no need," Ralph said hesitantly, seeing that Jack still seemed to press for an answer.   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
"There's...there just isn't much need to go outside. Is there?" Ralph tried to affect a casual tone. The conversation was veering too close, much too close to his ghosts, his rusting. Jack gave him a hard, appraising look that Ralph met in what he hoped was an innocent fashion, hoping Jack would lose interest.   
  
He didn't. Instead he moved forward swiftly across the cave floor, so swiftly that Ralph jerked backwards, contacting rather painfully with the rough rock of the cave.   
  
"Don't _do_ that," Ralph snapped irritably, willing his heartbeat to return to normal. Jack was inches away from him, still staring intently. It was one of his favorite intimidation tactics; there was something oddly feline about it that made Ralph want to smile in spite of his inevitable nervousness in the face of Jack's games.   
  
"Tell me the truth."   
  
"What do you mean?" Jack's eyes were so close Ralph could see the individual flecks of color that formed the flaming blue of his eyes.   
  
"Oh, don't play stupid." Jack said impatiently. Ralph had a sudden, desperate longing to explain the seductive promise of the ocean to Jack, to explain his exhaustion, to explain the pull of the cold water.   
  
He began, stammering, "I'm _tired_, Jack..." He smirked, and Ralph froze, retreating. _I am crazy. How could I think that Jack would understand?_ Ralph groped for something, anything to say, frantic to divert the conversation. "I'm not a part of your tribe," he heard himself saying coldly. Jack's face went blank as he digested this answer.   
  
He pulled back, and Ralph felt surprisingly bereft.   
  
"Of course you aren't," Jack's tone was venomous, and Ralph avoided eye contact. "You're a prisoner here, remember?"   
  
Ralph said nothing, felt nothing. Jack spun on his heel and left with a crisp crackle of leaves. 


	4. Bleeding

**A/N:** This is an awfully long chapter, I know. I thought about splitting it into two, actually, but it seemed unnecessary. I've been writing the story in bits and pieces, and really this chapter is the reason why chapter 3 took so long to go up - I kept writing this instead of that. Getting ahead of myself. :)   
  
I'd like to heartily thank everyone who has reviewed so far - it really brightens my day to see reviews, and you've all been so kind. Thank you. :)   
  
I actually have a question to pose to you, the readers. I was writing a bit from farther into the story, and I considered doing it from Jack's perspective. But then I realized that so far the third-person has been basically limited to Ralph, and maybe for the sake of cohesion I ought to stick to that. What do you all think? I'd really appreciate feedback on this. Of course, I'd appreciate feedback on any aspect of the story (and how's that for a subtle plead for reviews?).   
  
Please forgive any crazy mistakes, as I stayed up to all hours typing this, so I'm currently too tired to read it over thoroughly and make any stray edits. Usually I would wait, but this is already taking longer than I thought it would, and I'm leaving for school soon which means updates will be even less frequent. Anyway, I'll stop typing now and let you read.   
  


- - -

  
  
Percival Wemys Madison had not changed much since his first days on the island. His peers had judged and sentenced him to life as the underdog with cruel childish intuition. He became crushed by the weight of their ruthlessness, and he seemed to exist with a constant dew of tears in his small eyes. The older boys were impatient. Ralph was kind to him in an absent, instinctive way, and so Percival often crawled into his cave to cry miserably in Ralph's benevolent, if sometimes careless, presence.   
  
He wasn't the only one who found himself at Ralph's sanctum occasionally, but he was the only one who did so whom Ralph accepted as an identity and not a curious shadow. _Aside from Jack. Of course, aside from Jack._ Ralph could recall a shadow child fretting over a painful loose tooth or a bleeding, torn nail. More rarely, there was a shadow boy with the more troubling difficulties. Hideously inflamed wounds, jagged splinters, lacerations...Ralph could recall the scores of advice he had uttered in his voice...it _was_ his voice, but it sounded so far away and hollow to him, as if it had departed and left an echo. All of those strange, isolated sessions had the quality of unreality to both parties. In the dull glow of the cave, they were meetings with a masked shaman, never to be spoken of, secrets that were offended by the daylight.   
  
And Ralph knew that he had no special knowledge of medicine. What he told them was common knowledge - soak the wound, keep it clean, dress it, watch where you step, keep off of it for a few weeks, at least. He had neither secret healing herbs nor marvelous modern science to offer them. That was not why they came.   
  
So Ralph wasn't surprised to awaken to unhappy snuffles that seemed to come from his feet. He reached down sleepily to pat the child's curls. Percival, sure now that he had Ralph's attention, began to wail in earnest. Ralph rose to his knees and put a consoling arm around the boy's heaving shoulders.   
  
"What is it, Percy?" There was no response except the swell of his sobs. Ralph sighed and pulled the child closer, rocking him as if he was a much smaller boy. The noise prevented him from hearing the soft sound of leaves displacing until Sam stood directly in front of him, panting and excited.   
  
"Hurry, Ralph, we need you!" Ralph blinked up at him in surprise, and Sam began to pull urgently at his arm.   
  
"What's happened, Sam?" In response, the boy began nearly babbling, falling over his words in his haste to explain. From the torrent of words, Ralph gleaned that there was a fight, someone was hurt, and Jack had summoned him. Turning to the boy who was still sniffling beside him, Ralph said, "Stay here, Percy. All right?" The boy nodded solemnly, and Ralph stood, stretching stiffly. He nearly fell off balance when Sam seized his elbow and yanked him into the open air, setting off at a gallop for the line of trees. Ralph stumbled along after him, more annoyed than alarmed. He was still half asleep, and the early morning sun blared into his eyes mercilessly. "Does this have anything to do with Percy?"   
  
"Who?" Sam slowed slightly and shot Ralph a puzzled look. Ralph made an impatient motion with his hands.   
  
"Percy. Percival." Sam looked blank. "The little'un."   
  
"The scrawny one?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
"No, course not!" Sam said with round eyes, as if this was startlingly obvious.   
  
"Never mind then." Ralph was aware of a low buzz of voices before they broke through a thick wall of foliage and into a clearing. It was thick with the hunters. They all fell silent and turned to stare at the newcomers. Ralph felt his skin prickle under the weight of their eyes. He fought an overwhelming rush of instinct that screamed for him to turn and flee. _Come off it, Ralph. They're not hunting you anymore._ He dropped his gaze. It was several seconds before he was fully aware of what he was now looking at. Hideous splashes of scarlet scarred the forest floor. Ralph moved forward, already sure of why he had been brought to the secluded grove. He saw a tan foot, twisted legs, and a torso smeared with blood. From the center of the boy's chest, a broken spear protruded. Its faint, jerky rhythm proved the figure to be - miraculously - still alive. Ralph lifted his eyes to the boy's face. "Maurice." He said quietly, sadly.   
  
There was a stirring ahead of him. Ralph looked up as Jack pushed off the tree he had been leaning on and strolled forward, grimness hovering over every line of his body. Ralph wondered if he was still angry with him over what he had said the other day. For whatever reason, his conscience had been pricking him about it.   
  
"This isn't by any chance your doing, is it?" Ralph murmured steadily under his breath, when Jack was close enough within earshot. Jack looked taken aback, and then he glared.   
  
"It's Robert's." He replied coldly.   
  
"Robert's?" Ralph's gaze swung instinctively to a different boy, a dark, scowling presence that skulked a bit behind the others. Jack smiled without humor, acknowledging Ralph's surprise.   
  
"Yes, Robert." Ralph turned to look at him, and the boy looked back with an oddly pleading expression. He was standing apart from the others, with a strange mixture of defiance and fear, his arms soaked with blood. Ralph shook his head, dismissing him for the moment.   
  
"We have to get that spear out of the wound, but it's going to bleed badly...and to be honest about it, the shock might kill him." Jack considered this for a moment and then whirled around to face the boys.   
  
"You, go get every spare scrap of cloth you can find and bring it here. You three, go get fresh water. Not salt water. You, light a fire here. You, go get some skins. The rest of you...oh, go find something to do. Hurry, all of you!" Jack barked. "Robert, wait." The boy had turned to obey the last command, but now he turned with a cringing expression. "You go wash off." Jack said dryly. Robert beat a hasty retreat. Ralph was kneeling by Maurice's side, feeling carefully the pulse in his neck. It was predictably weak and unsteady.   
  
"I don't know, Jack..." Ralph felt his throat close on his fears. He could feel his veins throb in sympathy to the trickling that came from under the spears point in the boy's thin chest. He put a hand on his forehead. It was clammy, and Ralph sighed. "What happened here?"   
  
"I don't know. I didn't even know that those two didn't get on." Jack practically growled above him.   
  
"It seems that's putting it mildly," Ralph said quietly, his eyes on the gray wedge buried in the tanned, vulnerable chest. "They must have been arguing rather violently already for things to get so...well, violent."   
  
"Arguing, aye, if they had only been arguing!" Ralph hid a smile - Jack was so agitated that he was slipping into some strongly regional accent, "But what in hell made him think he could just up and stab 'im?" Ralph fixed him with a hard stare.   
  
"Jack...this can't surprise you?" Jack caught the significant accent of his words and glared.   
  
"What do you mean now, Ralph?" He demanded in a long-suffering tone. Ralph dug his nails into the soft forest floor.   
  
"They follow your example," Ralph said in a harsh tone quite unlike his usual voice, "it's all they can be expected to do." There was such an explosive silence that Ralph cringed slightly, unable to help himself.   
  
"They can't do something just because I would! It's different for me, I'm chief here!" Jack fumed. Ralph laughed in disbelief.   
  
"So it's all right for you to 'up and stab' someone, but no one else on the island can? Because you're chief?"   
  
"_Exactly_!" Ralph gritted his teeth, inarticulate in his scorn. In a moment, though, it fled, and he was left with exhaustion. He wearily stroked Maurice's forehead and felt only pity. He was so absorbed that the sudden hand on his shoulder startled him more than it should have. He whipped his head around and then jerked back instinctively as Jack's face loomed closer than he had expected. "Will you stop looking like that?" Jack said thickly. Ralph lowered his gaze in confusion.   
  
"Like what?" Jack shook him slightly in frustration.   
  
"Like..._that_. You're always looking so heartbroken -" Ralph exhaled shakily.   
  
"That can't surprise you," he said in a nearly inaudible voice. Jack's hand tightened so that Ralph could feel each individual finger's painful pressure, but Jack seemed oblivious to this, and his expression was not malevolent. It was pained. Ralph could hardly look at him.   
  
"Ralph," he began hoarsely, before footfalls crashing through the underbrush startled Jack a safe distance away. The boys were returning with the water and rags, and Ralph steeled himself for what had to be done, willing the five throbbing points of pain in his upper arm to go away as well as the slight tremor he felt in his thighs. Quietly asking some of the boys to clean off the excess blood and dirt, Ralph began swiftly folding the ragged scraps of cloth into some semblance of a bandage. He noticed the boys glance hesitantly at Jack, who nodded sharply, before complying. Ralph's lip curled slightly at these proceedings.   
  
"Ralph?" One of the boys ventured rather timidly. It was the first time he had spoken to his old chief for years. He may have hobbled to the cave with a wrenched ankle, but those times did not count, they belonged to the enchanted nights during which Ralph was a presence, a feeling, an advocate instead of a loser in the island's bloody games.   
  
"Yes...?" With a cold jolt of surprise, Ralph realized he couldn't remember the boy's name.   
  
"I had to have something ripped out of a wound once. Gruesome it was. Sharp piece of rock. It hurt like the devil, and my dad," the boy paused here, as if he had something bizarre and had to consider it, "my dad, he had to hold me still cause I was thrashing like anything." Ralph nodded, immediately appreciating the point. Maurice was unconscious, but his eyelids fluttered from time to time, and the sensation of having a spear point dug out of a raw wound might prove just the thing to jerk him back to the waking world.   
  
"Jack," Ralph began, noting with horror the way his voice faltered a bit on the name, "could you hold Maurice? In case he wakes up? He could hurt himself more if he starts struggling, and the spear has to come out." Jack grunted and knelt by him, grasping the prone figure firmly. Ralph sat back and sighed, closing his eyes, trying to focus. He wordlessly held out a hand for a piece of cloth and soaked it in the cool water by his side, dribbling it carefully into the wound to clear it. The flesh around the spearpoint was red and inflamed - not the ideal conditions under which to remove it, but Ralph knew it could not be helped. He seized the stick that protruded into the air to steady it, and grasped the spearhead between his fingers, exhaling nervously.   
  
It seemed to take hours to work the point out of the swollen, grasping flesh. _If Maurice can stay in a faint through this, he might be worse than I supposed,_ Ralph thought grimly. He had thought himself ready for the blood, but when the point came loose in his hand with a jerk, the sudden flood of crimson alarmed him. He seized the bandage and crushed it against the open wound, leaning his weight on it, praying that the pressure would be enough to staunch the flow.   
  
He was focused so strongly on the act of keeping the life from pouring out of Maurice that everything about him faded into vagueness. The air seemed to grow cold around him, as if he had been lifted up high in the air. He stared hard at the contour of his fingers, so unfamiliar to him suddenly, as they clutched the bunched fabric. It had not been very long ago since Ralph had last stood in the ocean and longed to give himself up, drain his life into the waves. It seemed foolish that now he was trying so very hard to keep Maurice from doing just that, when a part of him was snarling and laughing, pacing a corner of his mind and hissing that it was better to die than stay on this hell's playground.   
  
And yet his hands fought the hot pulsing of blood, pleaded for it to hold off its return to the water.   
  
"Ralph." Voices seemed so far away. Ralph tried to shake off his trance, but it was difficult. "_Ralph_." He turned his head, and Jack was there as he had been before. Ralph stared in incomprehension. "Well?"   
  
"Well, what?" he heard himself saying.   
  
"Is he for it?" Ralph blinked hard, and color and life rushed back into his surroundings. He looked over Maurice, gingerly lifted the bandage, and moved one hand to feel his forehead.   
  
"If he can make it through this, he ought to be fine. But right now he's cold and sweating, and he isn't breathing well..." Ralph bit his lip. "We have to tie this bandage down, too, and...god, they're everywhere." Upon closer inspection, Ralph had discovered numerous other scratches on the boy's frame, but they paled in importance to the chest wound, and he had not even considered bandaging them yet.   
  
"I can do that," a soft voice said from behind him. Ralph turned his head as best he could and beheld a slight blond boy holding long strips of cloth. There was one bewildering moment, and then -   
  
"Johnny? Johnny, is that you?" It dawned on Ralph that he had not seen any of the boys by daylight since...since then. How different everything looked in the murkiness of the cave. The boy smiled, looking childishly pleased at being recognized, and then furrowed his brow and went seriously to the business of tying up Maurice's wounds. Ralph leaned back in astonishment and watched the child neatly complete the task. "Well," he said when he found his voice, "you seem like you've done that before." Johnny looked up with a thoughtful expression that faded into faint unease as he glanced towards Jack.   
  
"My mum was an army nurse," he explained hesitantly, darting another look up at Jack, who grunted and stood.   
  
"Let's get him back to camp, by the fire." Everyone buzzed into action at Jack's command, and Ralph noted their alacrity with some amusement. As a few boys bent to clumsily lift Maurice into the air, Ralph worriedly turned round and said, "Jack, do tell them to be careful with him..." in a low tone.   
  
"Don't go and drop him, idiots!" Jack bellowed, causing the boys to start and nearly, in fact, drop Maurice's limp form.   
  
Ralph deliberately lingered until the last of the boys had joined the procession to camp, following quite a bit behind them. Already he longed to be back in his cave. He had had enough of the piercing sunlight. He was tired of seeing clearly; it hurt him. But pressing worry, and curiousity, too, prevented him from fleeing.   
  
When Ralph finally approached the circle of boys that surrounded the fire, he found Maurice deposited safely if rather clumsily on a bed of leaves that had been raked together a safe distance from the fire. Ignoring the way everyone quieted and stared when he drew near, Ralph knelt by Maurice and picked up a rag that was balled up beside a basin, dampening it and wiping the sweat from the boy's brow. _Nothing much to do but wait,_ Ralph thought. He looked around for Jack to tell him this, and for the first time he noticed that the tenseness in the circle went far beyond discomfort with the rare appearance of their first chief.   
  
His gaze swiveled to the figure that sat fidgeting on the other side of the fire. Outlined in flame, Jack towered above him, radiating a dark excitement that the other boys reflected, thickening the air. The effect was luridly enhanced by the sinking sun, which cast scarlet rays over a setting already bathed in firelight. Everyone seemed to be swimming in blood, waiting for it, hungry to spill it. Ralph felt himself go cold with dread.   
  
"You know you have to be punished," Jack was saying matter-of-factly, "but the trouble is how. This hasn't happened before. For a killing, the punishment has to be severe." The sheer hypocrisy of the statement made Ralph want to laugh, except that he caught sight of Robert's face blanching, and in the crimson light the effect was ghastly. Ralph stood, but no one noticed.   
  
Robert was saying faintly that Maurice was still alive, but Jack waved that away impatiently. "It's not from your want of trying, is it?"   
  
"Starve him," a boy suggested eagerly.   
  
"No, cut off his hands! That's what they do in India!"   
  
"It is _not_," another boy scoffed, and a heated debate ensued. Ralph looked at them, repulsed.   
  
"Cut off both his hands?" Jack murmured, considering. Ralph's head snapped toward him, his eyes wide with disbelief. Jack slid out his knife and began to test the blade. Roger had materialized from somewhere behind the circle, and he seized Robert, immobilizing him. Terrified tears rolled down the poor boy's cheeks, and Ralph found himself flying to Jack's side, grasping the arm that was holding the knife, keeping him back.   
  
"Have you gone completely off your head? How can you even consider that? It's your fault; watching you do this is what's making them monsters!" Used as he was to speaking to one person at a time, it had not quite dawned on Ralph that the entire tribe would hear his reprimand. The resulting silence was suffocating.   
  
Jack seized him unceremoniously by the arm and stormed through the circle, scattering boys who hastened out of his way like frightened sheep, breaking through the edge of trees and continuing, walking much faster than Ralph could manage. Although he struggled not to, he fell to his knees several times, and Jack stopped only long enough to haul him back to his feet. The sun had long since set, and as the pale radiance of the moon illuminated the forest Ralph could see the glinting of Jack's knife in the milky light when he swung his legs. Ralph felt sick with apprehension. After some time - it seemed to Ralph that they had walked to the center of the black forest - Jack flung him roughly against a tree and stood over him, seething.   
  
"Why do you do that?" Jack's tone was terrifying in its quietness. Jack usually yelled and blustered - this stillness was beyond rage, it was the focus of a hunter on the prey it cornered and intended to slaughter. Ralph decided there was no safe answer to his question and wisely chose to remain silent. "If any of the other boys tried anything like that I'd beat the skin off their back." Ralph glanced keenly up at this; he could not resist the implication.   
  
"Why are you different with me, then?" The answering silence was so freezing that Ralph sincerely regretted speaking and pressed back instinctively against the rough bark. "I mean," he continued, faltering although he fought not to, "since I'm the _prisoner_ and all," Ralph could not stop the venom from slipping out with his voice, in spite of his fear of the way the thick darkness hid Jack's eyes from him as if it were obeying the red-haired boy's bidding, "shouldn't it be the other way round?" Jack stepped forward so that he practically stood on Ralph's toes, and Ralph flinched back with a sharp exhale.   
  
"Do you _want_ me to beat you, Ralph?" His voice was quieter still; it sent tendrils of fear uncurling in Ralph's stomach, reaching throughout his body. And yet, Ralph found that he could answer him still.   
  
"Of course not. I'm not trying to make you angry, Jack. But I'm not stupid, either," Ralph spoke as steadily as he could manage, "or unobservant. I know that you've been more violent towards the other boys than me." _For the most part, anyway._ "It's always been that way. You make it obvious how much you hate me, but then you never do anything about it." Ralph broke off, unable to fully articulate the feeling, the simple intuitive knowledge that had awoken in him. Jack said nothing. Ralph stared down at the forest floor, frustration and unease prickling across his skin. He knew that Jack's egomania was only one reason why he hated being questioned; perhaps more importantly, he was horrible at explaining himself and took pains to avoid doing so.   
  
But Ralph refused to have it.   
  
"Damn it, Jack. Will you just give an answer?"   
  
"An answer?" Jack hissed, his blue eyes scorching, "Do you really want one, Ralph? I doubt you'll be liking it." Ralph doubted it, too.   
  
"It hardly matters. I'm tired of not having them."   
  
"All right, then." Jack's hand flashed out and curled painfully around Ralph's upper arm. "I do want to hurt you. For being right all the time. For being so righteous. For the way you make me feel. But most importantly, just because I do. I want to tie you up, make you afraid, hurt you, hear you whimper." Jack had seized the other arm, and Ralph was close enough so that Jack's hot breath seemed to be burning the humiliating words into his skin. It occurred to Ralph that instigating this was a mistake and that if he could somehow calm Jack down they could return to their previous bizarre, tacit truce and leave their relationship unmuddied with honesty. It also occurred to him that Jack's earlier taunts were more accurate than he knew; Ralph began to suspect himself of masochism, perhaps an unfortunate consequence of his need for truth that he could not seem to suppress, even when it was a question of Jack's violent displeasure.   
  
And so Ralph asked rather breathlessly and frankly against his better judgment, "Then _why_ don't you?" There was a moment of agonizing stillness and silence, and then Jack sighed wearily and seemed to fold into himself in the darkness.   
  
"Because..." Jack was clearly struggling to get his words out, "because...at the same time, I would never let anything like that happen to you. I'd kill anyone who tried it." Jack's gaze had fallen, and now it lingered on some invisible point below Ralph's chin. "I'd hate to see you hurt. I'd hate to hurt you. Even though -"   
  
Ralph pressed his lips against Jack's.   
  
He could have been subconsciously trying to prevent the reiteration of Jack's earlier rage. But that did not explain why he had been leaning forward slowly since Jack began to speak, or the unexpected, unexplainable melting warmth swelling in his veins that heated to a boil as Jack responded hungrily to the soft invitation.   
  
"And I thought you dragged him out here to kill him, finally." A gravelly voice rose out of the darkness. Ralph twisted his head away in shock and embarrassment, suddenly aware of the wild pounding of his heart, his uneven breath, and his shaking limbs. Jack swore with vehemence.   
  
"So you came to watch, did you?" He snapped back, recovering himself, although he did not let go of Ralph, whose thighs were caught on either side of Jack's leg. They both felt, although they could not see, Roger's answering smile.   
  
"Yeah."   
  
"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not going to kill Ralph," Jack glared down at the aforementioned, although the real malevolence had vanished, "today."   
  
"I can see that." Roger shifted in the darkness - Ralph could not tell just where he was standing, and that thought unsettled him. "Are you going to give him to us when you're through with him?"   
  
Ralph made an involuntary noise, halfway between a gasp of shock and a whimper of fear, shrinking back as best he could, a terror deeper and more wrenching than he had felt before taking hold of him. Jack let out a snarl of rage, for once a comforting noise.   
  
"Get away, Roger! No one's touching him."   
  
"Obviously _someone_ is," was the dry reply, but footsteps hastened away. Any fool could hear the ferocity in Jack's voice.   
  
Alone again, Ralph felt Jack draw breath to speak and hastily said, "Please, Jack, I'm tired...let me go." He could not hide the tremor in his voice. After a moment, Jack silently stepped back and took Ralph by the arm. The trek back through the forest was gentler than before, with Jack leading instead of forcing, adjusting his pace to Ralph's weary, more careful steps. Jack turned round to Ralph at the mouth of his cave, and Ralph thought he might kiss him again. Instead he muttered,   
  
"Don't worry yourself bout Roger, aye?" and loped off. Ralph watched after him long after he had disappeared into the darkness, and then crawled into his sanctuary. Percival was still curled in a corner, dozing and sucking on his thumb, and the cave had gained yet another occupant. Robert was propped against the cave wall, sleeping but with a pinched, frightened expression. Relief washed over him. The other boys must have allowed him to flee to sanctuary after Jack dragged Ralph off, supposing that another victim had been substituted for him, like a sacrificial lamb. Ralph flung a warm skin across the boy's knees, and then stretched out on the hard, cold floor of the cave.   
  
The boys came to Ralph with their pain under the cloak of night because his eyes were still capable of pity, however faint, however hopelessly waning; he could still be sorry for bruised flesh where the others, the lost, would bruise it further. They came to feed off of his strength, and when they departed Ralph was always exhausted in body and spirit. He would lay and try to fathom the darkness of the cave with his eyes.   
  
As he did now. 


	5. Saving

**A/N:** Sorry this took so long - it's hard to make time to write this with school.   
  
Thank you so much for all the great reviews. I hope you all enjoy this chapter.   
  
Also, Sasori - I was so thrilled to read your comment, because Jack's childishness is exactly what I'm trying to hightlight, and I'm working hard to keep him strictly in-character. Thanks! :)   
  


- - -

  
  
Ralph awakened from a fitful sleep aware of being watched from across the cave. He closed his eyes and tried to assemble his thoughts before sitting up and facing Robert squarely.   
  
"Sleep well?"   
  
"Not really." Robert's voice was faint. It matched his look. The boy's face looked crumpled and unnatural; his skin shone a papery, sickly white with streaks of riotous color. Ralph frowned and moved closer to lay a hand on the boy's forehead. He expected Robert to flinch back, but he didn't - he merely stared up at Ralph with the same glazed, panicky expression that he had worn since the fireside. His skin was damp with sweat, but not overly warm.   
  
"Are you hungry?" Ralph asked, as a formality.   
  
"No," Robert replied, looking ill at the thought. Ralph sighed, and the depth and resonance of the sound startled even him.   
  
"Why did you do it, Robert?" It was the question he had clearly been expecting, and his lips began to tremble as if on cue.   
  
"Stop that," Ralph said firmly but not unkindly, "I asked you a question."   
  
"He made me angry!" The sudden shrillness of Robert's voice grated on Ralph's ears, and his muscles tensed reflexively. "He was always teasing me! He wouldn't let me alone, and the others said - said," Robert swallowed convulsively, "they said he was younger than me and why couldn't I manage him? They made fun of me, too! And then one day, we were hunting, and he said I was slow, so I hit him, but -" Robert reddened in humiliation, "he could hit harder."   
  
"And the others made fun of you more?" Ralph guessed tiredly, already sure of where the story was leading. Robert nodded vigorously, the moisture in his eyes catching what little light there was in the dark cave.   
  
"And he started to tease me more. So-so-so," Robert's face became drawn, "so I tried to hit him again, and then I had my spear in my hand...he made me angry," Robert finished in a near-whisper. "But as soon as it stuck...I let go. I wanted to take it back. I swear it, Ralph, it's true." Ralph rubbed his forehead and stared off into space.   
  
"Robert," he began finally, feeling tired, helplessly tired in the face of this little drama that was somehow terrifying and ridiculous all at once, "you do realize that what you did was wrong, don't you?" From his rather blank look, Ralph supposed he hadn't, after all. "Just because someone makes you angry doesn't mean you can hurt them. And you did hit Maurice first." Robert twisted his fingers together unhappily. "You only get trouble when you try to solve things that way. Look at it now - Maurice is lucky to be alive, and you..." Ralph's voice trailed off, and Robert's head snapped up, a paralyzing expression of fear locked onto his face. Ralph laid a hand on his arm comfortingly. "You're making yourself sick," he finished, avoiding the subject of fire and the penal system of India altogether.   
  
Ralph realized that Robert was, in fact, gazing over his shoulder instead of at him. He glanced backwards, and jerked away in shock as he beheld Jack casually lounging a few feet away.   
  
"How the devil did you get in here without making a sound?" Ralph demanded a trifle hysterically. Jack smiled with dark amusement. Ralph scoffed, willing his heart to return to its normal pace. Jack pointed his finger at Robert, who looked ready to burst into tears, and jerked his thumb towards the front of the cave.   
  
"Wait outside." Robert moved slowly, shaking visibly. Ralph watched him, unable to speak for pity of the boy.   
  
"Well?" Jack said calmly once they were alone. "What in hell happened?" Ralph looked at him with a mixture of apprehension and confusion.   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
"With _him_." Jack clarified impatiently. _Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were asking about yesterday, when I encouraged a murderer and a sadist to kiss me like a lover after he threatened to whip me senseless._ Ralph choked down his choler and managed a nonchalant shrug.   
  
"Maurice made fun of him..." Ralph shook his head, "it was nothing. Stupid. They don't get on, that's all." Jack stared at him, curling his lip.   
  
"They don't get on, so he tries to kill him? That's very perceptive of you, Ralph."   
  
"Don't be an idiot," Ralph said scathingly, "what did you expect? What other reason could they possibly have, here? There isn't any! Except for the island itself and what it does to them." He saw Jack's eyes glaze over with boredom and contempt as they always did when Ralph started in on familiar territory, and Ralph fought down the tremendous urge to strike him with the first thing that was handy. "Will you listen to me for once, Merridew?" His voice, raised in aggravation, echoed on the cave walls. "If we were at school, they would be glaring at each other in class. Maybe there would be a scuffle in the hallways. That's all. It's this bloody _island_ that makes a stupid, normal, boring thing like two boys who can't seem to be friends into a bloody murder!" Because he could not help himself, Ralph added viciously, "And who do you think made him think that sticking a spear in a problem is a good way to solve it?" Jack's face had remained curiously blank during the tirade. Now he ran his finger idly in the dirt at his feet, as if he had not heard at all.   
  
"I still have a hard time believing that Robert would just stab Maurice, although he did do it, and there's no arguing that." Jack finally commented idly. Ralph folded his hands and looked down at them, laced together in his lap.   
  
"People will...do the most incredible things in certain moments," Ralph said slowly. Jack looked up swiftly, and Ralph refused to meet his gaze. "When they're overwrought...that sort of thing..."   
  
"Oh?" Jack said harshly.   
  
"How is Maurice?" Ralph asked hastily, hoping to deflect the conversation from the course it was taking.   
  
"He's doing as well as anyone can be expecting. He'll pull through."   
  
"Lucky that Robert hadn't really wanted to kill Maurice. The spear point wasn't in very far, so he must have -" Jack interrupted him with laughter, and Ralph looked up in surprise.   
  
"Lucky that Robert is a bloody idiot! He put the spear in the wrong side." Ralph looked blank for a moment, and then he sank his face into his hands, hiding a smile. He could see Maurice again in his mind's eye, with the spear protruding, yes, not from where his heart would be just a few centimeters deeper, but from the other opposite half of his chest.   
  
"Well, at any rate, he could have hit a lung and then what? My point is that -"   
  
"Roger stopped when he realized what he was doing," Jack finished with an impatient roll of his eyes. "I know what you're driving at."   
  
"Jack," a pleading note crept into Ralph's voice, "look at him. He's punishing himself. And Maurice will most likely live. And -"   
  
"It's not his fault, since he watches his bloody big chief solve his troubles with violence all the time?" Jack finished with more amusement than anything else. Ralph stared. He was deeply unsettled. It seemed that Jack was suddenly reading his mind, and he didn't know what to make of it. It seemed radically unlike him; he usually showed little patience and even less perception to the fair-haired boy.   
  
"I don't see how it's funny," Ralph said stiffly. Jack stretched, obviously unconcerned.   
  
"And what do you think I should do, Ralph? I can't do _nothing_. Even _you_ have to understand that." Ralph bit his lip to control his anger at Jack's condescending tones.   
  
"I think," Ralph began evenly, "that you should have Robert look after Maurice until he's well again." Jack laughed incredulously.   
  
"How is that a punishment?"   
  
"It's a punishment because he has to care for someone he hates. It's a way for him to take direct responsibility for what he did. And Maurice really should have constant looking after. And Robert will hardly be able to provide that if he's missing a _limb_, now, will he?" Ralph added bitingly. Jack gave him a look of grudging admiration from under the fringe of red hair that fell in front of his eyes.   
  
"All right, so it's a good idea. But the boys are going to be awfully disappointed that no-one's getting their hands cut off." Jack said languorously.   
  
"I imagine." There was a tense, loaded silence. Now that the rather immediate problem of Robert had been settled, Ralph found his mind wandering treacherously back to a dark forest and the memory of Jack's mouth and hands. He felt his breath quicken and looked down, praying that Jack would simply leave, and knowing that it was bloody unlikely that he was going to, seeing as he rarely did what Ralph wanted. He was not, however, at all expecting the hands that seized his shoulders and yanked him against Jack's lean chest. Jack was kissing him, unconcernedly. Ralph made an incredulous noise into his mouth and twisted his upper body away. "What are you doing?" He gasped when he had control of his own lips again.   
  
"What do you _think_?" Jack held the back of his head firmly and applied pressure to bring him close for another kiss.   
  
"Stop that!" Ralph yelped. Jack gave him a hard stare.   
  
"Not game for it anymore?"   
  
"Jack..." Ralph felt himself go still and shy, "I don't know why I kissed you last night."   
  
"I don't much care." The answer stunned Ralph to the degree that he could not fathom the meaning of the words for several minutes.   
  
"What?" He asked blankly.   
  
"Does it matter if you know why? No. Does it matter if you still want to? No. Are you forgetting?" Every warm feeling in Ralph fled, leaving jagged chunks of ice. He was silent for a long time. Frozen.   
  
"No," Ralph finally murmured, slowly, "I never forget." When Jack jerked him close again, he did not resist. He let go of each muscle carefully, pulling back, pulling inward. He let Jack lick his still, immobile lips and caress his limp frame. He may as well have been holding a doll. Jack stopped, stiffening with rage. He glared into Ralph's eyes, so close to his own. Ralph chuckled, an eerie, hollow noise. "It's not much fun, is it, Jack? Kissing a corpse?" Jack let go rather violently, cursing, and turned to leave. At the entrance to the cave, he turned back again suddenly and swooped down on Ralph, who was too cold, too far away to be surprised.   
  
"Take that look off your face! Forget it, all right? Forget what I said." Ralph blinked up at him.   
  
"Jack," he said softly, without any meaning for it, just to say the word, it seemed.   
  
"Damn you," the boy said harshly before wrapping his arms around him again, more carefully this time. He made no move to meet his lips, he simply held the blonde boy firmly against him. Ralph found that he was not being crushed once again against Jack's form, but that his body conformed pleasantly to Jack's angles, matching them in a companionable manner. He was being heated again. Jack's warmth was swimming under his skin. It made him angry. Jack had done so much to hurt him. Why should he be able to control him that way, dictate his freezing and melting?   
  
"You should go take care of this situation with Robert," Ralph heard his voice saying calmly. Jack drew back and looked at him searchingly. Ralph smiled feebly and without amusement. "I'll be right here when you come back." Jack leaned forward and placed the lightest of kisses on Ralph's lips. His eyes drifted shut, savoring the tenderness of the gesture, but snapped open again as Jack's voice rang out close to his ear.   
  
"You'd bloody well better be." When Jack made up his mind to make an exit, he could do so in a split second. Ralph found himself alone so quickly he was disoriented, Jack's last comment still stinging his ears. He ran his hand down the scar on his arm, and then ran his tongue over his faintly swollen lips. He considered running across the woods, down the beach, into the ocean. He wondered about the sudden, painful thawing of himself, and that of all the people to thaw him, Jack had to be the most unlikely, the most inconvenient, the most frightening, the most wonderful. The most whole. Because he seemed to be the source of everything; it was him that chased him out of the sunlight, and it was him who was sometimes dragging, sometimes coaxing him back. He dealt violent harm one moment and sweet comfort the next.   
  
Ralph knew that he unraveled when Jack was near, that he became closer and more intimate with darkness and growling things and passions that seek to rend and tear, and the thought unsettled him more deeply than any other.   
  
Ralph's humanity was the last thing he had, the last thing he could hold inviolate from the island, from Jack, from the beast. But he was sinking. He felt it, and was afraid.   
  
_I can't survive like this. It's Jack's doing. He's figured out how to get me at last._


	6. Drifting

**A/N:** I am so thrilled by the wonderful reviews I've gotten recently. I want to respond to each of them individually, but I only have a few moments to post this before I shall be absent for a few days. In general, though, I'd just like to quickly confirm that ambiguity is a very important part of the story, although there's more deliberate fog-lifting in this particular chapter than there has been up to this point - that's symptomatic of the rising action, I suppose. In particular, it's Jack's motives that are in the dark, although one can make guesses, and I've decided (your comment helped me cement the idea, Fritzi Rosier, because I want Jack to be entirely murky before this point, most importantly because he's entirely murky to Ralph, and it is Ralph's mind that the narrative is married to) to save his point of view for the explanation/catharsis, I suppose you could say.   
  
Enjoy! :)   
  


- - -

  
  
Alone, the hours passed unbearably slowly. A restlessness that he was not at all accustomed to had fallen over Ralph's muscles. He longed to leave. He longed for the coolness of water surrounding him, rinsing the unbearable hum of thought from his mind. _That isn't right. I can't stop thinking. I have to think...I need time to think._ Ralph shook his head violently, beyond frustration. The cave was confusing him, smothering him. But Jack's parting fierceness made him afraid to leave, and he hated himself for it.   
  
"Time away," he muttered aloud, smiling faintly at himself, at how crazy it was to speaking to the dead walls, "I need to think away from him. I can't _think_ when he's around."   
  
So when the leaves at the front of the cave rustled, he was immediately grateful at the distraction from himself.   
  
"Eric -" Ralph began warmly, but choked off as the boy flung himself across the floor and into Ralph's side, hiding his blond head in the curve of his arm. A jolt of apprehension sped through his limbs, leaving nausea in its wake. "Oh, god," he said softly, "what now?" Eric lifted his head slightly to peer at him, his eyes stained red with emotion. "There's no end to the trouble we all make for ourselves here, is there?" Ralph said sadly, more to himself than the boy beside him.   
  
"You managed it, didn't you?" Eric's voice was a hoarse, weak whisper.   
  
"Managed what?"   
  
"Robert. You told Jack not to kill him. You saved him." Ralph chuckled helplessly, thinking of how Jack would react to the idea that Ralph had told him to do anything.   
  
"Well, I did suggest it. Lucky he listened. I don't think he ever intended to kill him, though...just mangle him. You know Jack..." _Straight out killing must bore him by now,_ a voice said savagely in the back of Ralph's mind, from his graveyard of memories. It occurred to Ralph rather suddenly, though, that Eric didn't know Jack, wasn't concerned about Jack in the least. Ralph stared down at him in confusion, focusing on him fully for the first time. Eric had buried his head into Ralph's arm again, clearly distressed.   
  
"Eric? What's this about, now?" Ralph placed a hand on Eric's bowed head and smoothed the tangled hair underneath his fingers, overcome by a wave of affection.   
  
"I was worried 'bout Robert," was the muffled response, but Ralph could hear the restraint that his tone was chafing under.  
  
"You've been crying," Ralph said quietly. He knew it was an understatement. The glimpses he had seized of Eric's face had revealed the ravages left by more than a few cursory tears, and there was a shaking weariness to his limbs. He stroked the blond head absently - Eric made no response. "Were you good friends?" Ralph asked in confusion, "I didn't know -" There was a shuddering sigh.   
  
Intuition moved through Ralph like a warm current.   
  
"_Oh_," he said, startled, "er...I see." Eric's eyes peeked over his arm.   
  
"You do?" The anxiety in his tone was painful to hear. Ralph stroked at his hair reassuringly again, but then straightened suddenly.   
  
"Hold on, now...Robert's been violent, Eric. Are you sure it's safe -" Eric's head had snapped up in a flash, and he was babbling, tripping over his words in his eagerness to defend.   
  
"It's not, he's n-not, it was Maurice! He couldn't help it! He -"   
  
"You can help trying to kill someone, Eric," Ralph said firmly. He faintly regretted the words at the boy's reaction. His entire body seemed to sag, as if mortally wounded.   
  
"I don't care," Eric said, his voice weak again, tears slicking over his eyes, "it don't matter to me. I wouldn't even care if he did kill Maurice," Eric's tone grew defiant. "It don't change anything." Ralph turned the declaration over in his mind while reaching out again soothingly for the boy.   
  
"All right," Ralph murmured, "never mind, then. I'm sure he wouldn't harm you, anyway. No more crying." Eric sank once more into his side. There was a calmer silence. Ralph's eyes drifted absently round the cave and rested on a small spot. He frowned and asked suddenly,   
  
"Have you seen Percy?" Eric's head moved in surprise.   
  
"Yeah..." He seemed ready to add something, but trailed off.   
  
"Because he was here for a bit before, but then he left...and with all the confusion out there, I'm worried about how he might react. He's different than the other little'uns."   
  
"He was scared," Eric said softly. "He was scared of the blood." Ralph stared down at him. "He must have been hungry, so he came to the circle. I was there, waiting for news...and Jack came, and Percy was crying, a little ways off...I reckon he was too scared to move. It was a bit of a mess." Eric turned his head to look up at Ralph. "Jack stopped near him and said something. I don't know what, but he stopped crying."   
  
"Jack?" Ralph said, astonished. Eric nodded.   
  
"Speak of the devil," a voice said dryly from the foot of the cave. Every muscle in Ralph's body tightened with shock, then relaxed. He scoffed, half in annoyance, half in awe, as Jack pushed leaves aside and made his way into the cave lazily.   
  
"I think you are the devil sometimes," Ralph said, only half-joking, as he stared at him.   
  
Jack surveyed the scene before him with an unreadable expression. Ralph tightened the arm about Eric.   
  
"Do you, er, want me to leave?" The boy said faintly, looking uneasily up at Jack.   
  
"No," Ralph said.   
  
"Yes," Jack said at the exact same moment.   
  
"Eric came here for help," Ralph said coldly. "I don't see why he should be chased away." Jack grinned rather unpleasantly at Eric.   
  
"Help with what? Robert still has both his hands, doesn't he?" Eric flinched with shock, and Ralph instinctively put his other arm round him, shooting Jack a reproachful, mildly scandalized look.   
  
"How did you know?" Eric asked breathlessly.   
  
"Your brother, he's in a state." Jack broke off in laughter. Eric sank miserably against Ralph.   
  
"Eric," Ralph said in a low tone, "is Sam jealous?" Eric nodded unhappily. Ralph sighed. "He'll be sorted soon enough, you'll see. You're brothers."   
  
"I hope so," Eric put in miserably. Jack gave a huff of impatience.   
  
"Why don't you go to Robert, already? Get helped? I want to talk to Ralph alone." It didn't sound like a suggestion.   
  
"You said no one was to go near Robert," Eric said meekly. Jack rolled his eyes.   
  
"No one except you. Happy?" He obviously was by the instant brightening of his demeanor. He gave Ralph a troubled, uncertain glance. Ralph smiled weakly.   
  
"Go on. Wash your face and have something to eat, first. You look ill."   
  
"All right," Eric said. He withdrew slowly from Ralph and moved as if to leave, but Ralph clutched at his hand for a moment, moved inexplicably to draw it to his mouth and kiss it lightly.   
  
"Sam will come round. Never mind it."   
  
"Thank you," Eric said fervently, glancing instinctively towards Jack to indicate exactly what he was thankful for. Ralph nodded slightly, releasing the hand. Eric crawled past Jack and out of the cave, his movements quicker now, more purposeful.   
  
"What was all that?" Jack asked sharply. Ralph looked down, his lashes sweeping dark circles on his cheeks that Jack found fascinating.   
  
"He's kind to me. He's always been kind to me. He would be even if I couldn't offer him any help...the others are different, I know it," Ralph's voice was cracked and emotional, and he flushed. What was he thinking? This was Jack. Ralph cleared his throat and looked away. "Why...jealous, are you?" he added mildly. Ralph was amused - and strangely gratified - to see Jack's startled, embarrassed movement. He recovered swiftly, though - he always did.   
  
"Well, you've not yet kissed my hand," said Jack in a forced dismissive tone.   
  
"You've not yet been kind to me," Ralph murmured quietly. There was a heavy silence.   
  
"There's going to be a hunt in three nights," Jack said conversationally. Ralph jerked his head to look at him. He was staring back placidly. _So he's taken to ignoring me,_ Ralph thought grimly.   
  
"A hunt for what?"   
  
"For pigs, idiot." A chill ran down Ralph's spine at the inevitable stirrings of memory. _It's not always pigs with you, is it?_   
  
"No," Ralph said sharply, "for what purpose, Jack?"   
  
"Not that we need a purpose, but as a matter of fact, it's to celebrate my brilliant handling of the problem with Robert and Maurice." Jack's tone was self-deprecating, but Ralph was in no mood to appreciate the small concession.   
  
"Hmm," Ralph said, without any meaning. He heard Jack draw near. A horrible combination of delight and alarm seized his muscles. He turned his face away in confusion, and flinched when Jack's fingers made contact with the flesh of his back, moving with surprising gentleness across his shoulder. Ralph allowed himself to be pulled against Jack's warm, hard body.   
  
"Come with us." In the haze produced by their closeness, Ralph could not at first understand the invitation. Then he went tense with shock.   
  
"No," Ralph managed in a low, strained tone. It was Jack's turn to grow tense. Then he chuckled suddenly, and Ralph looked warily up at him.   
  
"Don't worry...if you become a hunter, it will be like nothing ever happened. The others will forget -"   
  
"No!" The vehemence in his voice startled even Ralph. "No," he continued more softly, "I can't."   
  
"Why in hell not?"   
  
"I can't! I won't! Let go of me," Ralph struggled to twist away, disturbed.   
  
"All right, keep your hair on," Jack said crossly, and Ralph went limp, faintly embarrassed, but his mind still reeling. There was a moment of stillness, and then Jack urged him gently back against his side, drawing Ralph's head onto his shoulder. "You know, I thought you might say no," he said, sounding more amused than disapproving. Ralph sighed, turning his face into Jack's shoulder.   
  
"What did you say to Percy?" he asked suddenly.   
  
"Eh?" Jack replied, startled.   
  
"I heard he was upset..." Jack frowned.   
  
"Oh, right. Him. Boy's always wailing about something, in' he? I reckon it was all the mess round the fire, Maurice went and bled over everything -"   
  
"He could hardly help it," Ralph interjected softly, examining the skin over Jack's collarbone.   
  
"I suppose not. Anyway...wait, why do you care?"   
  
"Why not?" Ralph replied, surprised. "He's just a child, still...everyone else is cruel to him. It's not his fault that he's sensitive." Ralph's fingers itched to explore the track his eyes had laid. There was a very faint, very thin scar that bobbed over the swell of bone. Ralph wondered if it felt like his. He rubbed his fingers across his marked arm, delighting in the friction.   
  
"It doesn't do him any good here, does it?" Jack remarked dryly. Ralph gave a soft, sad huff of laughter.   
  
"No." He had given up rubbing his arm in favor of clasping an ankle and idly moving his hand over the length of his calf.   
  
"I told him it was a game." Jack said distractedly, staring at the progress of Ralph's hand.   
  
"What do you mean?" Ralph was for the first time conscious of power, conscious of the sway he held over Jack's eyes. He watched, reveling in the feeling, as they followed the dipping and swirling of his hand.   
  
"I, er..." Jack looked and sounded foggy, "I told him the boys were playing a game, and that no one was hurt at all..." he trailed off and swallowed. Ralph's hand wandered up to his thigh. Jack tore his eyes away to probe into the depths of Ralph's gaze. He looked confused and uneasy, rather like an animal that had found firelight in his well-known forest. "It was the best thing I could think of," Jack said, his voice growing hoarse. Ralph took his hand from his leg and stroked Jack's collarbone once, lightly.   
  
"Thank you for looking after him for me." Ralph breathed before closing the distance between them swiftly to cover Jack's mouth with his. The kiss was long and deep, satisfying and not enough at the same time.   
  
Ralph broke away suddenly. "No," he gasped, "I have to think." Jack stared, a look of almost comic incomprehension on his face.   
  
"What are you..._what_?"   
  
"I - I want some time to think," Ralph said, flushing deeply.   
  
"About?"   
  
"This, of course." Ralph waved his hand, encompassing the two of them and more. Jack stared disbelievingly.   
  
"You're mad. What's to think on? You like it, or you don't! Is that so hard? And don't tell me you don't after _that_," Jack added disparagingly. Ralph flushed deeper, shame lancing across his chest.   
  
"It's not that simple," Ralph said almost inaudibly. Jack whirled around, pressing a hand against his forehead. "God, Jack. We need to talk." There was a bark of laughter.   
  
"Do we need to talk or do you need to think?"   
  
"Both..." Jack sat down heavily, facing him.   
  
"Then talk. Or think." Ralph stared at him, at a loss for words. Jack sat, glaring, for a few minutes before his frustration overcame him, and he reached for Ralph again.   
  
"I don't have the patience for you," he growled. Ralph was unresisting, confused, torn, exhausted. Jack covered his unresponsive mouth with angry kisses. A faint sense of deja-vu assaulted them both.   
  
"Why are you...what made you like this?" Jack shook him lightly, as if he were a ragdoll.   
  
"You," Ralph said, his voice suddenly raspy, "of course. I fought you for as long as I could, Jack, now you just make me tired." Jack stared at him. Ralph expected a tirade, a blow, a departure. Not another kiss, slower and more thorough than any before it.   
  
"Don't think," Jack murmured when he finally ended, "just answer. Did you like it?"   
  
"Yes," Ralph answered faintly. Jack leaned in, and he turned his head so that he encountered his cheek rather than his lips. "But it's not that simple."   
  
"Damn you," said Jack, with wonder rather than viciousness.   
  
"Just some time, Jack."   
  
"You think too much."   
  
"I know..." Ralph's brows knit in distress. "Please, Jack! Just a few days, please..." he broke off suddenly, overwhelmed with disgust, and jerked roughly away.   
  
"What now, for God's -"   
  
"I'm always begging you for something." Ralph said with loathing, putting distance between them.   
  
"And I'm always giving it to you," Jack snapped, leaping to his feet. "Fine. Right. Think all you like. Rot here with your thoughts if that's what you want." He paused, looking down at Ralph with something like hatred. "_You're_ the devil, I swear it." Ralph glared sullenly into the rock of the cave wall, still caught in a swell of resentment that lasted far after Jack had departed.   
  
It melted away eventually, and he was left with the deep and resonating silence of the cave and the clamor of his thoughts. 


	7. Thinking

**A/N:** I sincerely, sincerely apologize for how long this took. I've started college and took a significant hit in the "free time" department. :( Thank you all so much for the wonderful reviews - you are all such perceptive readers, and it makes me so happy that you're enjoying the story and seeing where I'm going with the characters and their struggles. :) 

-

It was the quiet of a holy place. Against the far wall, Ralph sat with his legs folded and his eyes closed, drifting. He let his breath take shape like the ocean, flowing forwards and backwards. The sound of roaring came to his ears. He was nowhere and nothing. Jack had kept his word and more. For two nights now, Ralph had seen no one. There was only rustling at the front of the cave occasionally, a crude attempt to knock, and the soft noise of running footsteps on the spongy ground, and by the time Ralph pushed the leaves aside there were only bowls of food to greet him. It must have been Jack's doing. Ralph gritted his teeth so tightly when he thought of him that his jaw ached. It was as if he was trying to keep him in isolation. _I hate him,_ he told himself, all the more angry because he knew that he did not.

The sound of movement at the front of the cave annoyed him. Visitors were the last thing he wanted. He wanted to stay in his trance, ebbing and flowing, but he already felt himself returning, rudely forced back. He opened his eyes, already prickling with irritation.

The sight of the sullen-faced boy hunkering at the front of the cave did not do anything to improve his mood.

"Yes?" Ralph asked tensely. He began glancing around for the stray cloths he used as bandages and his bowl of water. He froze, his arm halfway outstretched. Fully alert now, Ralph could sense that there was something entirely wrong, entirely off-color in the air. The flesh of his back was crawling. He forced himself to continue to reach toward the bundle of cloth he kept handy. Kneeling, he placidly arranged the materials by his side, and then glanced up with what he hoped was a neutral expression.

Roger's eyes were glittering in the dark. There was something hideously alarming in his look. It was the gaze of someone entirely, darkly, frighteningly fascinated. The gaze of a voyeur.

"Well? Is something wrong?" Ralph heard himself saying coldly, while he fought his inner urge to attempt to flee around the boy. Roger smirked and held out his arm. There was a deep, ugly slash across the back of his hand up to the middle of his forearm. Ralph felt himself relax slightly. _So he did come for bandages,_ he thought, although a nagging doubt danced across the back of his neck, chilling the flesh it found there. Ralph dampened a cloth and motioned for Roger to come closer. The boy strode across the floor swiftly and dropped down far closer than Ralph had intended. Ignoring this, Ralph wrapped the cloth firmly round the wound, careful to encase all of it. He was so focused on his task that Roger's grating voice startled him far more than it should have.

"What do you get out of it?" Ralph glanced at him sharply. Part of him already knew what Roger was referring to.

"Excuse me?"

"What do you get out of it? I know what he gets out of it, but what do you?"

"I don't know what your talking about." Ralph focused on the bandage. It was dark and slightly coarse, probably the remnant of a jacket. He tightened the knots, forcing himself to work carefully, trying not to let on that he was nervous, ready to bolt. "There," Ralph began, securing the last bit, "that ought to -" he broke off into a startled cry. Roger's fingers were digging painfully into his thigh. Before Ralph had time to react further, he brought his other hand up and scratched his nails lightly down Ralph's cheek.

"Is that why he lets you live?" Revulsion took hold of Ralph, ripping violently through him. In the next moment, it seemed, he was standing over Roger, speechless with offended dignity. Roger brought a hand up to his newly bruised jaw, looking rather startled. He got to his feet quickly, pinning Ralph with an ugly look the entire time.

"Get out," Ralph said coldly. Roger made no move to do so.

"Took you some time to think of it, right? You were always so clever. Got him wrapped round your finger now? Or not your finger," Roger added with another leer. Ralph fought to keep his fury in check.

"You don't know what you're saying. You know very well that Jack doesn't listen to me." Roger laughed, a short, harsh noise.

"The whole tribe knows better than that. You told Jack not to hurt poor little Robert, and he didn't." Roger gave him a look that was disgust, and something else, something uglier, more elusive. "You! Ordering our Chief around." Ralph could only stare incredulously.

"You don't know how wrong you have it," Ralph muttered. "Jack wouldn't just...he didn't...for God's sake, what reason would he have to listen to me?"

"He didn't have any, before." Roger locked his gaze deliberately with Ralph's. His eyes were empty, glassy. "But now you've obviously given him one. He should have killed you years ago..." The tension ran out of Ralph. He sank to the floor with a deep, heavy sigh.

"You're right, he should have." Roger froze, caught completely off guard.

"I bandaged your hand. Now get out. Unless you want something for that bruise?" Ralph added savagely, pleased to see the angry flush that started over Roger's cheeks. There was no other movement in a long while. Ralph looked up again, his eyes gleaming strangely in the faltering light of the cave. "If you're so convinced that Jack does what I tell him to, why are you staying? He could be along any minute. Maybe he's just as annoyed as you are that the bloodbath was cancelled." At this, Roger regained some of his composure.

"That's it, is it? That's a threat." Ralph laughed at him, and he seemed to shrink in his eyes. Bratty, sulking child.

"Get _out_, Roger. Stop being a fool. Do you think I care about who's running this bloody island anymore? Look at me!" Roger looked. Whatever he saw made him uncertain. He backed away to leave, but stopped at the mouth of the cave, his eyes growing narrow, suspicious.

"You're doing it again. Clever. You don't fool me, though." Ralph turned from him with an exclamation of disgust. Roger rustled through the leaves once again. Ralph stood, his muscles painfully taut, for several minutes. He was seized by an alien desire to take some sort of decisive action, but he was quite surprised when his steps bent suddenly for the cave entrance. Thrusting the leaves aside, he walked into the harsh, heavy sunlight. Ralph faltered for a moment as he looked around himself, but he soon regained his vigor and strode purposefully off towards the fireside.

He was relieved to see, as he approached, that it was practically deserted by this time of day, except for the boys he was looking for. Eric was kneeling side by side with Robert in the distance, their legs pressed together so that they seemed vaguely like one mass. Closer to Ralph was a tall, sturdy tree with a tan leg and arm peeping out from its side. He was quite close before Eric realized that someone was approaching, and the boy stared at him with so much shock that the effect was rather comical.

"Ralph!" He managed. The limbs behind the tree twitched, and a head poked out, awkwardly twisting to see him.

"Don't, Maurice, you'll strain something," Ralph said, hurrying over to kneel beside the injured boy. He had been propped up against the rough tree, facing his caretakers. Ralph gave him a reassuring smile as he brushed Maurice's thick, tangled hair off of his pale forehead.

"Did you come here for me?" He asked, sounding rather awed.

"Yes, and I'm very glad you're finally awake to see it." Ralph replied quietly, taking in his appearance. Consciousness was one of the only improvements. There was a sickly pallor to the sun-darkened skin, his eyes were sunken and ringed heavily, and every so often his lips would pull involuntarily at a corner, like a weak twitch. "How do you feel?" Maurice took a deep breath that threw out his thin chest and seemed ready to lie bravely. However, the motion must have aggravated the fresh wound in his chest, and he winced forward, weakly clutching at the spot covered with motley cloth.

"I'm aw-wful!" The words came out in a wail. Ralph had been expecting it - he did not suppose that anyone had attended to Maurice in any way other to see that his literal wounds were not about to kill him. Comforting the child who had nearly died, Ralph thought with not little venom, seemed beyond the capabilities of anyone in the godforsaken little tribe. He moved closer, and Maurice dropped his head on his arm. "I feel sick, and I have to watch _them_ all day," Ralph saw out of the corner of his eye that Eric gave an unhappy flinch at this, "and it h-hurts!" His voice dropped a bit at the end as his hand quivered over the cloth, as if divulging a shameful secret. "And _they_ don't care! They don't do anything!"

"I do!" Robert yelped, afraid that he was about to be accused of carrying out his sentence improperly.

"You don't!" The venom in the boy's voice was terrible to hear, and Ralph lifted a hand to cradle the head against his elbow.

"All right, all right," he said soothingly. The last thing Maurice needed was a fit of hysterics. Ralph glanced backwards at the guilty-looking pair and wondered if he had make a mistake in asking Jack to assign Robert the responsibility of taking care of his victim. "I expected better from at least you, Eric." The boy lowered his head.

"B-but Ralph," he began unhappily before Ralph silenced him with a wave.

"Please get something for Maurice to eat, Eric. He looks starved." Eric got to his feet, but stood nervously without going off.

"Well?"

"He won't eat, Ralphie," Eric whispered, his eyes on the floor. Ralph jerked his gaze back to Maurice, alarmed.

"Is that true, Maurice? But why?"

"I can't. I'm sick." Maurice pressed his pale lips together. Ralph closed his eyes for a moment.

"Robert, do you know those trees that grow near the center of the island? With the very thick, wide leaves?" Robert nodded, still looking abashed. "Go gather as many as you can." The boy scampered off. "Eric," the blond boy sidled closer at being summoned. "Do you think you can manage to warm water in one of the wooden bowls? If you put it near the fire, but not too close?" Eric hesitated.

"I can try...I haven't done it before..."

"Well, put a piece of meat in the water and try to warm it as much as you can." Eric's eyes brightened, catching on to the idea, and he hurried off. Ralph was left quite alone with the younger boy. Maurice moved as if he intended to lift himself out of Ralph's arm, but his entire body tensed in apparent pain. "Try to be still," Ralph admonished quietly. Maurice sniffled and then coughed to hide the noise.

"I can sit on my own. You don't have to hold me," he insisted in a rather unconvincing tone. Ralph turned his face away to hide his smile.

"Of course not. But it's so shady under this tree - you don't mind if I stay sitting here, do you?"

"Oh, no," Maurice said graciously, "you can stay." Ralph could not resist ruffling his hair lightly. After a few minutes of companionable silence, Ralph asked quietly, "Is it difficult to be here with Robert?" Maurice scoffed theatrically.

"I'm not afraid of him."

"I know, but...maybe it would be easier on you if you had a friend taking care of you?" Ralph sighed internally. He should have considered this from Maurice's point of view before.

"Oh," Maurice paused uncertainly then scoffed again. "I don't need to be taken care of." Ralph fought the urge to groan. Behind him the sound of footsteps in the brush alerted him to the boys' return. Robert looked over his armful of leaves at Ralph questioningly.

"Put them on the ground here under the tree, like a bed," Ralph said, lifting Maurice carefully up despite his protests about being able to stand on his own. Robert spread the soft, springy leaves neatly across jungle floor. Ralph nodded at him in approval and helped Maurice lie down. The boy looked surprised for a minute.

"It's soft," Maurice said, curling up contentedly.

"Could you go to my cave and fetch some skins, too?" Ralph asked, smoothing Maurice's tangled hair. Robert hurried off again. With attention diverted elsewhere, Maurice's bravado had evaporated. His eyes had drifted shut and the raw agony on his young face as his tense muscles adjusted to the sudden comfort of the leaves sent a pang through Ralph. "You ought to be with me in the cave," Ralph sighed. "They aren't taking good care of you, are they?" Maurice's eyes opened only slightly to register that Ralph had spoken. What could be seen was glazed, unfocused, rather like an animal in pain. The fair-haired boy closed his eyes. It was an awful position - it seemed he could not do anything without jeopardizing the safety of both of the boys. To ask that Maurice be placed under his care was to admit that his plan for Robert's penance was not working. _And then what?_ Ralph buried his face in trembling hands. _It would be back to his plan. He would do it - he would hurt Robert just to spite me. He would._

"Ralph!" He jerked out of his reverie, startled. Robert was kneeling by him, a bundle of skins in his arms, looking anxious. "I'm sorry, Ralph!" He said earnestly. The boy blinked, belatedly realizing that his eyes were wet. "I'll do better, honest! Please don't..." Robert trailed off, nervously chafing his palms. Ralph smiled weakly.

"Will you?"

"Yes!" As if to illustrate the point, Robert carefully draped the warm skins over Maurice's rigid body. Soft footfalls emerged from the darkening jungle, and Eric stepped forth, carefully carrying a dark bowl.

"Did it work?" Ralph asked. Eric set the bowl down carefully by Maurice's makeshift bed and nodded, allowing himself a small smile. The water had indeed colored slightly, becoming a weak broth under the coaxing of the fire. "Good." Ralph placed his hand gently on Maurice's forehead. "Do you think you can drink a little?" Maurice looked up wearily, hesitating.

"Maybe..." he propped himself up slowly on his forearms and leaned over to sip hesitantly at the contents of the bowl. Eric settled down beside the boy, patting his hair comfortingly. Ralph surveyed the scene. It was a far more hopeful picture than when he first arrived - the boys were hovering anxiously over their charge, who looked at least comfortable. _Maybe they will do better after having a little push,_ Ralph thought, biting his bottom lip. Maurice was leaning back, burrowing under the skins and yawning.

"He drank it all," Eric whispered in a relieved tone. Maurice's eyes closed and within moments he had fallen into a peaceful sleep. Tension that he had not realized he had ran out of Ralph's limbs.

"Keep giving him that until he can eat properly again, all right?" Ralph stood up slowly, sighing. "Come get me if you need anything." With a final nod, Ralph turned and melted back into the forest. Instinctive steps brought him back to his cave while his mind was occupied with thoughts of the boys he had just left. Perhaps that was why he did not notice the figure leaning easily against the back of his cave until he was quite inside. A startled cry escaped his lips, and an amused look flashed out at him from a falling fringe of red hair.

"It's only me," Jack said, unsuccessfully fighting back a smirk. Ralph turned away briefly to collect himself, crossing his arms. He was completely unnerved. Jack had stayed away for so long, and now here he was, casually, as if nothing at all had passed between them. "Well? What are you doing out in the sun, Ralph?" He met his mocking gaze at this, surprised.

"What do you mean?" he asked quietly, tightening his arms.

"Aren't you afraid of melting?" Jack was greeted by another blank, bewildered stare. "You _look_ like you're made of wax." Ralph looked away again.

"Being in the cave...you know." There was a heavy, dull silence.

"What's wrong with you now?" Jack asked in a resigned tone.

"Nothing's wrong," Ralph replied sharply, realizing as he said it that the answer was as ridiculous as the question. Jack stepped towards him, and Ralph moved back without thinking. Jack stopped, a strange smile hovering on his lips.

"I did what you told me to, you know," he said, scratching the back of his head carelessly. Ralph searched for a reply, fighting a desperate urge to simply flee. _Hell,_ he thought, _hell_. It seemed like the correct word. "But it doesn't mean anything to you, eh?" Jack continued, "You don't make any sense -"

"I went to go see Maurice," Ralph said quickly, answering the question that had not quite been asked.

"Oh? How was he?"

"A bit better when I left..." Ralph hesitated. A sudden, ridiculous urge to confide in Jack about the stressful events of the day arose in him. _Stupid,_ he chastised himself viciously, _it's his doing in the first place. His fault._ And yet the yearning refused to fade, and Ralph twisted his fingers together, unwittingly manifesting his turmoil. _Hell_.

"What's wrong, Ralph?" Jack's voice was closer than before, and Ralph flinched - towards him, as if on instinct.

"Just worried," Ralph said breathily, trying to control himself, "there's only so much we can do here, and it's a bad wound...I'm just worried." There was an unguardedly puzzled look in Jack's eyes when Ralph met them skittishly.

"He'll be all right. No need to get so worked up about it." Ralph let out an exasperated breath, and Jack chuckled. "Was that all?"

"'Was that all?' Only Maurice's life, Jack," Ralph snapped, aggravation returning some of the strength to his limbs. Jack waved a hand.

"Well, he made it this far." A serious look came over Jack's face. "Maurice is stronger than he looks, Ralph. He'll be right. You'll see." Ralph looked down, disarmed by the warmth of Jack's tone.

"What exactly happened to Roger's arm this morning?" Ralph said quickly before he thought the better of it.

"Roger's arm? I don't know, what happened to it?"

"You don't know? He came in here with a gash." Jack was frowning to himself.

"Roger skulks around. Disappears for days on end. Who knows how he managed it." Jack met his eyes with a darkly amused expression. "Be glad he wasn't busy cutting someone else."

"What do you mean?" A chill was creeping up Ralph's back as the events of that morning played in his mind.

"Roger doesn't play nice, aye?" Ralph could not suppress a violent shudder.

"Ralph, what's wrong with you? You don't have to be scared of Roger."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Because..." Jack frowned. "Because you don't. No one in their right mind would hurt you."

"What do you mean?" Ralph asked faintly, but Jack was apparently lost in his thoughts for a moment before his eyes snapped back to Ralph's.

"Is that why you're so jumpy? What happened?" Ralph said nothing, flustered. Jack closed the distance between them in a few steps. "Ralph, tell me." He gripped him lightly by the forearms.

"Nothing, Jack." Ralph said, fastening his eyes to his feet.

"_Ralph_."

"It was really nothing, Jack! He was just..." Ralph trailed off as Jack stepped back a bit and began minutely scrutinizing his frame. "What are you - ah!" Jack had seized him unceremoniously by the shoulders and spun him around. Ralph felt himself flush crimson. "What do you think you're doing?"

"There isn't a scratch on you," Jack said, mostly to himself. Ralph whipped around. Jack chuckled at his expression and, no doubt, his blush. "Don't tell me that he _said_ something that worked you up like this?"

"I told you, it was nothing." Ralph said firmly, folding his arms over himself.

"Tell me later, then," Jack said, withdrawing slightly with an amused air, "I'm only here to remind you of the hunt tonight." Ralph looked at him warily.

"Oh?"

"Are you sure you're not coming?"

"_Jack_ -"

"Just asking," Jack chuckled, turning to go. Ralph sighed and rubbed his fingers over his forearm.

"Well, be careful." He intended it as a dismissal, but Jack turned back at this.

"Why?" Ralph stared in bemusement.

"Why? Why do you think?"

"I wouldn't know, Ralph," Jack said, walking towards him again, casually, "why should you want me to be careful? Wouldn't it be good for you if someone slipped with a spear?" Jack smirked at him faintly.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Come on, now, be reasonable. It's an honest question, don't you reckon?"

"I'm not the one who's unreasonable, Jack," Ralph murmured, trying to withdraw. Jack caught an arm lightly.

"At least answer me, Ralphie, what if a herd of wild pigs tramples me? Then I'll never know why you want me to be careful when..." Jack broke off suddenly, and then laughed. "Well, you know it. I don't remember giving you a reason to be concerned about my well-being, Ra -" Ralph jerked his arm away violently and turned, pressing his palms into his eyes, trying to cool the ache in his forehead. The day's strain was dragging him downwards. Jack's new little game was not improving the situation, and he wanted very badly to lie down. "All right, all right," Jack was saying behind him, "don't do that." Ralph was unable to stifle a faint groan.

"You're horrible," he said thickly, "to say all that. Go on, will you? My head aches." Ralph hated the low trembling note in his voice and did not feel overly fond of the arm that slipped round his waist instead of departing as requested. Some of his resentment evaporated as a hand snaked up to rub one of his temples in an undeniably welcome manner. _Oh, hell,_ he thought achingly. Too tired to resist the impulse, he let his head roll back against Jack's hard shoulder and closed his eyes.

"You're right," Jack said quietly. _About what?_ He could not seem to voice the question. Jack's fingers felt deliciously firm against the yielding tension in his temple. "You did have a hard day, aye?"

"Aye," Ralph sighed, smiling faintly, and Jack chuckled. Ralph tried to drift away on the haze produced by his weariness, Jack's fingers, and the warm skin underneath his cheek, but a small, insistent thought was forcing its way up through his consciousness. His eyes sprang open.

"Jack...they've agreed to hunt together?" There was a rueful laugh behind his ear.

"Sharp. I thought you had forgotten." Jack's fingers paused in their ministrations. "I don't know whether or not they'll hunt together. I suppose that's what I'll find out tonight." Ralph turned round in his arms.

"That's what you're worried about..." There was a long silence. Jack's eyes locked into Ralph's.

"So come with me." Ralph digested this sudden development. Here was the reason, or at least part of the reason, Jack had been pushing him to hunt.

"Jack...what could I do?" Ralph said, probing.

"Go on. You're smarter than that." Ralph lowered his gaze to Jack's neck, torn.

"Don't you..." his throat closed, and he coughed nervously, "don't you meet by the fireside? I could go there. I just can't...I couldn't..." Ralph felt his eyes sting and dropped his head further down with alarm.

"All right," Jack murmured, almost as if he was not listening. He traced Ralph's spine lightly. "Tell me something."

"Hm?" Ralph shivered under the faint touch, knowing intuitively where this was leading.

"Are you finished thinking?" Jack said the word with a good deal of disdain, but he followed the question with another ghosting of his fingers along Ralph's back. The boy was quiet for a long time. The thought that swelled through Ralph's mind at the moment, eclipsing all others, was of his irrepressible need to trust Jack with fears about Maurice, completely against his better judgement, and of how sweet Jack's subsequent reassurances were to him. He wanted to explain these things to Jack, but the words stopped in his throat. Instead he wordlessly seized his hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it slowly before guiding it back up to his forehead.

"Don't stop just yet." Jack resumed his attentions with a small, rare smile.


End file.
